Targum Obadiah

Targum Obadiah

Translation by Thomas Lenihan (B.A. History – California University of Pennsylvania), 2015.

Translators Note: The differences in syntax and grammar between Aramaic and English would render a truly literal translation of any Targum nearly unintelligible to the English reader. However, the attempt was made with this translation to be as faithful to the text as possible while maintaining readability. Therefore some singular nouns have been switched to plural when it was called for. Also, the punctuation was adapted for an English reader. Verses were cut up into separate sentences when their meaning would be more evident in that format. Any words in parentheses are not explicitly in the text but are, in my opinion, implied.

The prophecy of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord God to Edom – A report have we heard from before the Lord and a messenger into the nations has he sent. Arise and let us prepare ourselves for battle against her.

Behold, I will make you weak among the nations. You are highly contemptible.

The wickedness of your heart has led you astray. For you are like an eagle that dwells in the teeth of the rock, whose dwelling-place is in the heights, who says in his heart, “Who will bring me down to earth?”

If you soar like an eagle and if you set your abode between the stars, from there I will bring you down, saith the Lord.

If thieves came upon you, if plunderers of the night – How then would you sleep until they had stolen their fill! And if robbers, as grape-cutters, came upon you – Would they not leave gleanings?

How then has Esau been ransacked! His hidden things have been revealed.

You have been driven from the border. All the men of your covenant have led you astray. Those who were at peace with you have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a snare underneath you, because you lacked sense.

Shall I not in that era, saith the Lord, destroy the wise men of Edom and any man who has sense from the city of Esau?

And your warriors who dwell in the south shall be smashed, in order to destroy any man with the mark of the City of Esau, through slaughter.

For violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered in disgrace and you will be destroyed forever.

On the day you stood aside, on the day the nations plundered his possessions and strangers entered his forts and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.

And that you watched on the day of your brother on the day of his destruction, and that you rejoiced over the children of Judah on the day of their destruction, and that you went on to speak boastfully in a time of trouble.

And that you entered the gates of my nation on the day of their destruction, and that even you watched his affliction of the day of his destruction, and that you laid your hand on his possessions on the day of his destruction.

And that you stood on the cross-road to cut off his refugees and that you handed over his survivors in a time of trouble.

Because the day is near, that will come before the Lord, upon all nations. What you have done will be done to you. Your deeds will be returned to your head.

For just as you rejoiced over the smiting of my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink constantly from the cup of their punishment. And they shall drink and be confounded and they shall be as if they never existed.

And in Mount Zion there will be deliverance, and they will be holy. And the House of Jacob shall inherit the possessions of the nations who had inherited from them.

And the House of Jacob shall be mighty as fire and the House of Joseph as strong as flame and the House of Esau as weak as straw. And they shall dominate them and kill them and there will no survivor for the House of Esau, for the Lord has decreed it so.

And those who dwell in the south shall inherit the City of Esau. And those who dwell in the plains (shall inherit) the lands of the Philistines and they shall inherit the villages of Ephraim and the villages of Samaria. And the house of Benjamin (shall inherit) those who dwell in the land of Gilead.

And the exiles if this nation of the Children of Israel that is in the land of the Canaanites (shall inherit) until Zerapahath. And the exiles of Jerusalem that are in Ispamiah will inherit the villages of the south land.

And saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge the City of Esau and the Kingdom of the Lord shall be revealed upon all inhabitants of the earth.